Tyranny of Competence

Seth Godin talks about having atleast one person in any organization who is the only one who knows some intricate technical details, or the only one who can solve a critical problem. And he's a jerk and everyone acknowledges it with a resigned expression "Yeah, but he really know his stuff ...". Sound familiar? Perhaps sounds very familiar.

The above post immediately reminded me about the chapter "The Tyranny of Competence" in the beautiful book "Deep Change: Discovering the leader within", by Robert E Quinn. Quinn talks about the extreme cases where a powerful individual contributor takes control and then begins to undermine the influence others.

I have observed this concept at two levels. The first one at CxO/VP levels where the person has led an entire organization into a strategy that only he believes, often having a catastrophic after effects. The second one more at an individual contributor/technical lead level where the damage is limited to a particular group, atleast to begin with. So how to distinguish such a person. Here are some (you could sure come-up with a lot more):

You hear this person say:
"The team is full of incompetent people. They just can't get it"
"Given a chance, I will fire more than 50% in this group/floor/site"
"The customer doesn't know what they are into. I told them that their strategy is bound to fail"
"This is the only way the problem can be solved. You/Manager/Customer don't know anything"

Others are saying:
"XYZ is the only one who can get us out of this mess"
"Meeting/brainstorming/discussion has to be postponed as XYZ is not in today"

More than the words, such people create an atmosphere of fear around them. No one has courage to question, as such people tend to admonish in public. Timid managers add to the problem by not being able to rein in such people.

The only way out it seems, especially as a manager is try NOT to have indispensable people and thereby not become a victim of tyranny of competence. If you have successfully dealt with such people and led them to be more co-operative and contributing, I'd love to hear the same.